Surely, aside from people’s overly ideological responses to hearing Spanish in the checkout line, there are reasonable compromises to be made. We can all learn a little Spanish, as we should expect all Americans to speak English. Don’t make illegal immigration reform a cover for people who are just scared of other people.

Furthermore, as Mary shows well, learn whole-heartedly the other side and look for its cracks - no cheap shots!

As I said on another thread, the minute you let them put you on the defensive as a “racist,” is the minute you’ve lost the argument.

Put THEM on the defensive. Make THEM defend things like:

–Subsidizing cheap labor for corporate welfare
–Enabling Mexico’s corrup ruling class — including Carlos Slim Helou, now the richest man in the world — to evade responsibility for their masses of poor people
–Forcing struggling middle-class Americans to assume a tax burden for supporting the illegals while Carlos Slim Helou gets off scot-free to enjoy his billions

Use their liberalism against them. Make them defend the blatant corporate welfare that “cheap” illegal alien labor represents. Make them defend the Mexican ruling class. Make them explain why Mr. & Mrs. Joe America, struggling to get by on 50K a year, must support never-ending social services for illegals while the Mexican ruling class gets off with paying nothing.

THE NEW IMMIGRANT

Dean Baker is a very liberal economist with iconoclastic views on immigration.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press

George Borgas is a professor of economics at Harvard and a Cuban immigrant. He is generally acknowledged professionally to be the expert on the economics of immigration and is a skeptic on the benefits of immigration.

http://www.borjas.typepad.com/

Then there are the recent results by Robert Putnam showing that diversity increases isolation of all groups, including within-group isolation. It reduces “social capital”. Putnam puts a liberal spin on his well-reported quantitative results.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x?cookieSet=1

Your remarks were an attempt to intimidate dis56 , weren’t they? Now admit it. You pulled out your little pseudo-intellenctual diatribe and you thought that people would shrink away in horror at the dreaded “R” word.

“And yes they are in my neighborhood. We need to clean house.”

How is this “racist”? It could have been said about illegal alien Russians for all you know. And “cleaning house” could be a reference to getting rid of the illegal alien enablers in our “government.”

After all they are the ones who are occupying the House — and the Senate and the White House too.

“Racism” is indeed used as later-day McCarthyite techniqure to demonize opponents on all sorts of questions of the day, don’t pretend you don’t know that. Which is why I brought up the point about “racism” now being used to stifle opponents of big box stores. You can use “racism” as an excuse to support anything these days.

If you are not a pro-open borders type, you certainly sound like one. That is why I brought up the effects of open borders on black Americans. The argument the open borders types make usually goes something like this, “We were mean to the blacks and the Native Americans so therefore we have to give the Mexicans our country.” Which move would do nothing but harm black Americans and Native Americans, btw.

If you’re not open borders then explain why you adopt their techniques.

I know, from being a regular reader of BVLV, that the people here are primarily concerned with the lawlessness of the situation and how it is affecting their quality of life, with good reason. I also know that LEGAL immigrants are equally concerned with the illegal alien situation and how it is also adversely affecting them, with a very few exeptions. I, as I have stated before, am myself formerly a legal immigrant and now, for many decades, a naturalized citizen. We do, indeed, have a very unique situation here in that the sheer volume of illegal aliens has begun to tip the economic scale in favor of big business that routinely takes advantage of this source of cheap labor to the detriment of small business which cannot compete unless they also choose to break the law. The people who really lose are the legal American workforce who can either not find jobs in this new “PC” society or cannot afford to live as citizens at the same wages under which this illegal work force is able to flourish. The emotions run high and it’s very understandable, as it is inevitable.

Your next comment was equally bizarre. Here, you state that “You’re scared that your little talisman of “racist” will stop having any power over people, aren’t you? And you know what, you’re right.” Apparently, I’m lacking enlightenment because for whatever reason, I cannot point to anything within my comments, implicitly or outright, that somehow relates to your scrutiny. Think that carefully through for a moment.

Interestingly, my reaction to what dis56 said had nothing to do a border issue of any kind, especially with consideration given to African-Americans, and whatever kind of thought process somehow makes a connection between my comments and what dis56 said is not coherent. If you go back look over my comments, I specifically DO NOT state anything about how open borders would be a benefit to African-Americans.

Rather, I mention that “If you do not support racist causes or claim to not be sympathetic to racist causes, you need to stop using the language of racism. Think extremely hard about the words you’re using. To be unaware of the language of our own cultural tradition, (Jim Crow era South) is to set yourself up to be unknowingly racist. If you claim not to be racist, you cannot make that mistake.” Herein lies no comment about open borders in relation to African-Americans, but a discussion of the language that dis56 was using. For whatever reason, I cannot make the connection between having a discussion about the language dis56 was using and having that somehow relate to talking about open borders with respect to African-Americans.

Furthermore, my explanation of your ill-fated attempt to marginalize my comment suggests that because you cannot put forth a substantive argument that points to “real” things that I “actually” said, that you need to fabricate evidence in order to support your claim. If you want to try to point to a argumentative mistake I may have made, then it is not only a customary option to specifically quote something I’ve said, but the only viable one at that.

It is you Robert F. who are the racist, you seem to be of the type of people who throw the race card at every opportunity you have. You’re scared that your little talisman of “racist” will stop having any power over people, aren’t you? And you know what, you’re right. Where I live Home Depot corporate shills are accusing anyone who objects to a big box store in their neighborhood of being “racist.” The word is so over-used that it is quickly losing all meaningfulness and it certainly isn’t scaring anyone away from defending our country.

PS how are open borders of benefit to black Americans? Where I live black Americans are fleeing from Hispanic crime and gangs just like whites are. In fact blacks in LA are being deliberately ethnically cleansed from neighborhoods that they’ve lived in for decades, forced out by “Latino” gangs which target them for violence and even death. Watts and Compton are now majority “Latino.”

And blacks are suffering more from the invasion than whites because they (generally) have fewer resources with which to run away from immigration anarchy. On top of that young blacks are being pushed out of minimum wage jobs because they don’t speak Spanish.

You should look on youtube for the black guy from LA who keeps talking about how he can make a Burger King burger in 12 seconds, but he can’t get a job at BK because he doesn’t speak Spanish.

put in the current context: could be seen as vaguely racist or at least, slightly sympathetic to racists.

put in the context of the Jiw Crow era South: “And yes they are in my neighborhood. We need to clean house.” - overtly racist

If you do not support racist causes or claim to not be sympathetic to racist causes, you need to stop using the language of racism. Think extremely hard about the words you’re using. To be unaware of the language of our own cultural tradition, (Jim Crow era South) to be set yourself up to be unknowingly racist. If you claim not to be racist, you cannot make that mistake.

When we discuss like human beings a topic of such magnitude, the discussion should be predicated upon an intellectual discourse whose foundations are transparency and validity - not raw emotion or a supposed ‘intuitive” feeling. If those raw emotions and supposed “intuitive” feelings cannot be substantiated by transparency and validity, it provides all the more reason to abandon them.

–Don’t shop at big box stores that have bilingual advertising and signage. I make it a point to write letters or emails letting them know why I don’t shop at their stores. I try whenever possible to support small businesses as those are still mostly staffed by English-speaking Americans.

–Don’t accept any kind of bilingual direct mail advertisements. If any company dares to send me some flyer, letter or brochure that is bilingual, I send it back to them with slogans like “This is an English speaking country” and “I don’t patronize bilingual advertisers” written across them with a big black Sharpie marker. It only costs me a stamp.

–Complain verbally as the above posters did about Spanish-language announcements in stores.

–Join Pro-English and US English, both organizations that are standing up for our historiclal language with lobbying etc. Donate generously.

Right now advertisers take it for granted that they can pursue the Spanish-speaking market without losing English-speaking customers. Our job is to disabuse them of this erroneous notion. Never lose an opportunity to show them that shoving Spanish down our throats WILL cost them big-time from the more affluent English-speaking market.